


Interwoven

by rosehustle1



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Fate & Destiny, Karma - Freeform, Mysterious, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 16:32:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6202691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosehustle1/pseuds/rosehustle1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sandor's origin story is much the same except he doesn't remain at Clegane Keep after he is first burned. Instead his life takes a much stranger path...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It Would Always Begin This Way

**Author's Note:**

> I'm feeling like this will be a short story maybe six chapters. Just me playing around with different magical themes and myths in this one. Hope you all enjoy.

It was a month of ointments, dressings, and milk of the poppy for the young boy with the burned face. He had cried the first three days because of the pain. He cried for the next three because of his loneliness. But the seventh day, he stopped crying and only felt the hollowness inside his chest grow heavier. It had been his own brother to harm him with the flames and it had been his own father to cover up the truth of the affair. He had no one. The only person who may have loved him, his mother, had died when he was still too small to fully appreciate her. He barely could recall her face.   
After a month of bed rest and constant care by the Maestar, Sandor Clegane was allowed to move around the keep. His face was still healing but he could manage much better eating and drinking. Looking at himself in the mirror had been the second worst moment of his life. For him, his appearance only solidified that he would never be happy again. The overwhelming sadness of that notion propelled Sandor to run from the keep and venture into the woods. 

But solitude would not find him there. Instead a lithe brunette with emerald eyes would be waiting by his favorite tree. Her name was Moira and she wanted to be a ‘mother’ again. Sandor being only a small child wanted someone to love him and take care of him more than ever. 

“I have seen what was done to you and have waited for you to come here. I have had other children, but they eventually leave… I so want to take care of you, Sandy” She said as she traced Sandor’s brow with her finger.  
“I would love for you to take me away. No one loves me here.” He said with sadly.  
Moira crouched down and held her hand out for him. Sandor held onto hers gladly.  
“You must promise never to leave me. You must promise to always heed my teachings. You must promise to always be my faithful son.” She said in a tone that brokered no argument.  
Sandor, having had no one to truly care for him, didn’t think through the proposal. He only felt happy that such a kind woman would want him as hers, scars and all. He agreed easily and on that day his life was suddenly very different.

 

Twenty years had passed and it was in that time that Sandor grew into a young man and a dutiful son. He learned his letters, trained with the old knight his mother had on retainer (he still didn't understand why the mute Sir Raleigh followed mother so faithfully), and developed quite a penchant for fighting. But there were drawbacks as well. He had to kill quite a lot and often at his mother’s urging.

Today had been one of those days. Sandor was exhausted from digging the graves. He didn’t think the couple stood much of a chance but he had hoped. His mother said they had been dark hearted and that their deaths were justified. But then she always said that.  
Sandor realized very soon after he stole away with Moira that she was not like other people. She wasn’t a witch. She was always adamant about that fact. But she did seem to have powers. For instance, she knew how to get people to say the truth even those things they couldn’t possibly want to admit aloud. She got the woman to admit, in front of her husband, that she was sleeping with his twin brother. The predictable fight ensued and it had been up to Sandor to use his brute strength and sword to dispatch the group. He had asked his mother why it was necessary to get that secret out of the woman. 

She only replied, “They have starved their child to feed their own bellies.”  
“What child? We have stayed on their land for three days, and I haven’t seen any child.”  
Moira sighed at his naivety.  
“The child is dead of course. But she asked me to come here. I found her clothes hidden away…There is no excuse for such vile behavior…She was only four. Anyway, I could see the darkness on their souls. Dreary stuff they were made of. You’ve done the Gods’ work.” She explained as she gathered her bag and walked toward the door.

It was strange how she knew things and saw things that he used to believe were impossible. His mother seemed to know everything. She also seemed to always thrive best when she was causing mayhem.As Sandor finished burying the bodies, Moira came to stand beside him. He didn’t think he would ever get over how she never aged. They looked more like siblings now than mother and son.

“Sandy, I have a sense that we need to venture to the capitol.” Moira said.   
Sandor grumbled.  
“I hate it when you call me, Sandy. I am a bloody man grown. I’ve killed countless men and women for you…”  
Moira’s death stare silenced his rant. It wouldn’t do to make her cross. He found that out long ago.  
“As I was saying, Sandy, I have a feeling the capitol is the way. There are many wrongs to right there and fools to flounder.” She said with a satisfied grin.   
Sandor rolled his eyes and placed the shovel on the ground.  
“What’s in the capitol?”  
She smiled widely and shook her head.  
“Oh, no. You will have to wait and see. Now, get washed up and meet me in the wagon. I want to leave shortly.”


	2. The Ways of the World

When he was sixteen years of age, Sandor’s mother had decided to stay in one place longer than a fortnight. They lived for a year on the edge of the forest in a small cabin. It was during that time that Sandor met and fell in love with the local girl, Holly, a daughter of a sheep herder. She was short and had a petite frame. He was a giant to most men, but he seemed double that size in comparison to her. He had saved her from getting stomped on by an unruly horse that her father had recently acquired. He didn’t think that she would want much more to do with him after she got a good look at his face, but he was quite glad to be wrong for a change.

At first, Sandor believed it was just gratefulness due to him saving her life. It had occurred to him that the kindness she bestowed upon him would pass. But she found where he and his mother lived and took it upon herself to visit him every afternoon. She usually came with pastries she had left over and gave some to his mother and Sir Raleigh. The former, polite toward the girl but distant, and the latter only able to smile and shake his head in approval. It was during these afternoons that Sandor learned about Holly’s life. She had lived in the small village her whole life. Her mother had died when she was small due to child birth. Her sister hadn’t survived either. She told him about her father’s work with the sheep and horses. How he was one of the best in the area. They became easy friends. It was so different from how things usually went. He wasn’t the butt of a cruel joke nor someone to be pitied. Holly just liked him. He told her of the places he had seen and she told him her great tales of fairies, elves, and wizards. Sandor realized that Holly was quite good at making up stories and used this ability to make life more magical for everyone she considered a friend. Sometimes he wanted to tell her that there was real magic. But he knew better than to reveal the things he had seen because of his mother’s strange abilities. It was a month of afternoon walks and evening meals when Holly told him she cared for him, and he knew he felt the same about her. After that, they were nearly inseparable.

One night as they lay in the hammock looking at the stars, as they were like to do, Holly finally bridged the one topic of conversation that he never felt comfortable discussing.  
“Sandor, will you ever tell me what happened to your face?”  
“I don’t like talking about it. Sometimes when I do speak on it, I almost feel like it’s happening all over again.” He said as he closed his eyes.  
He could feel Holly turn on her side. She then ran a finger over his cheek.  
He slowly opened his eyes and turned on his side to face her.  
“Have you ever had a moment in your life when you felt so small and worthless that you thought your heart might break from the pain of it?"  
Holly smiled sadly.  
“No. I’ve never felt that small. But I know I’m luckier than most small folk in that. I know my Pa loves me. Did your Pa love you?” She asked as she leaned her head near his.  
Sandor took in a deep breath. He couldn’t afford to get sucked into the past.  
“Let’s not talk on this anymore. One day, I’ll tell you about my scars and hopefully you’ll be my wife then.”  
Holly smiled widely at his words and leaned over to kiss him.

That had been a lovely night. It hurt to think of it now. She would develop a nasty illness of the lungs a few months later and die in her sleep. He thought her one of the strangest and kindest girls he had ever met. The first to not shriek from his scars nor judge his character based on them. Holly stood up for him when others in the village made jokes at his expense. It took him a while to believe her interest and affection were true. But in the end he knew it was genuine.  
Her father had grieved her and couldn’t bear to keep the farm. He was selling everything off including the unruly black stallion. Sandor claimed the horse and named him Stranger. He knew most would find it a blasphemous name, but he felt that being afraid of death didn’t lessen its power. He’d rather know it as a faithful friend than an enemy. Mother had been open to the new companion as if she expected him to come back to the cabin with the ferocious horse all along. She had the same calm countenance when he told her of Holly’s illness. He wondered at times if she knew about Holly’s fate long before it would come to fruition.

 

It was these dreary memories that Sandor relived and pondered. His mother had taken them from town to town, kingdom to kingdom, and even across the sea to do her ‘work.’ It always seemed to revolve around her seeming to befriend some witless commoner and then influencing them to tell her the truth. The truth they spoke was always ugly and terrible. They were usually guilty of some horrid crime and mother wanted to hear it from their lips before he was called to put them down. 

He could still remember the first man she asked him to kill. He seemed kindly and more than hospitable to their small party. But mother could see into him in a way that he never would.  
“Mr. Talby, what do you think is the biggest sin you’ve ever committed?” Mother asked over their evening meal.  
Sir Raleigh stilled his knife and placed it on his plate. Sandor put his cup of wine down. Mr. Talby seemed to still all at once, and his eyes looked back and forth frantically. Sandor could tell he was trying to purse his lips to keep them shut, but they opened on their own.  
“This home was my mother’s. I killed her with the axe and threw her body in the river. When people asked after her, I said she went to live with her sister in Bilbury. No one here knows where Bilbury is nor how to get there.” The man finished his statement with a deep exhalation.  
“That’s not all you’ve done, is it?” Mother asked with a tight smile.  
“No. I have killed many of the visitors who pay to spend the night here. I throw them all in the river. No one’s looking for a wanderer.”  
Mother laughed a little and then stood up.  
“Sandor this man is a vile creature and an abomination to this realm. He’s condemned himself to death. Son, it is now up to you to rid him from our presence.”  
“Mother, I can’t kill a man. I have never…”  
“You will now. You will avenge all his victims with one well placed cut from your sword.”  
“Why can’t Sir Raleigh do it? He’s done it before.” Sandor asked in a panicked tone.  
She pursed her lips and walked toward him.  
“Sir Raleigh has done enough. You are a man now. You are my great warrior son. It is time you use your abilities to set things right.” She said as she placed a hand on the hilt of his sword.  
“Mother, I’ve never killed anyone…”  
“You will today. He is not an innocent, and this is not up for debate. Do as you're bid, or do I have to remind you of your promises to me? Do I have to remind you who saved you from your wretched brother?”  
He remembers the rest in fragments. A man’s deep howl. The smell of iron wafting through the air. A head by the door, and a body slumped over the table. His mother hugging him and saying she was proud. Sir Raleigh’s unshed tears as he watched from beside the hearth.


End file.
